


Put Down in Words

by MadAlien



Category: Red White & Royal Blue - Casey McQuiston
Genre: 5 Times, 5+1, Emails, Established Relationship, Fluff, Le Monde, M/M, Marriage Proposal, Olympics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-29
Updated: 2020-01-29
Packaged: 2021-02-25 12:54:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,923
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22456510
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MadAlien/pseuds/MadAlien
Summary: Five times Henry and Alex almost got engaged, and one time they did.
Relationships: Alex Claremont-Diaz/Henry Fox-Mountchristen-Windsor
Comments: 34
Kudos: 534





	Put Down in Words

**Author's Note:**

> Extra special thanks to A for basically coming up with all the best parts of this and then letting me run with them & for being endlessly supportive and wonderful. 
> 
> Thanks also to NeelyO, BiblioPan, and all my RWRB frans for cheering me on. 
> 
> Title from "Your Song," because what other correct choice was there?

I

The words were _right there_ on the tip of his tongue, and it took nearly every ounce of self-restraint that Henry possessed to not just blurt them out. He was feeling almost unbearably content and in love, head pillowed on Alex’s chest with one of Alex’s hands resting in the dip above Henry’s waist that Alex loved so much and the other gently stroking Henry’s bare back. 

On the one hand, the simplicity of this moment encapsulated everything that Henry loved most about their relationship, so it felt perfect to say it right then and there. On the other hand, Alex deserved something bigger, grander, more thought out. He deserved the perfect moment. He deserved _everything_.

It wasn’t as though this were the first time Henry had thought about proposing. In all actuality, the idea first crossed his mind after their first kiss, which he later chalked up to his level of inebriation. But the second time they kissed, desperate and deep, smashed up against that portrait of Alexander Hamilton, Henry knew that alcohol had really played no part in the way the words “God, I want Alex to be my husband” had flicked through his brain as he walked away from Alex in the cold and sought out Pez so they could leave the White House immediately. 

These days, that particular thought was on his mind near constantly, and every time he was in Alex’s presence—which was often considering they lived together—phrases like “Will you marry me?” and “I know you’re mine forever no matter what but I still very much enjoy the idea of a piece of paper that says you’re mine forever all the same” and “Do you find it sexy and/or romantic how intensely I desire to be legally bound to you?” joined the mix. 

But he’d never felt as in danger of them slipping out as he did right now. Alex had been away doing First Family things for several days, and, like every time they were apart, Henry had missed him intensely. He knew that Alex would tease him for how he’d just wandered morosely, aimlessly from room to room in their brownstone during the evenings when he had no engagements and nothing to occupy his mind except missing Alex, which is why Alex was never going to know how Henry’s Alex-less evenings tended to be spent. 

But now Alex was back and he was here in their bed and their warm, naked bodies were pressed together and Alex’s hands felt so good on Henry’s skin and it was so domestic, so perfect that Henry wanted to say it _so, so_ badly. 

And he almost did say it. He took a deep breath and swallowed audibly and opened his mouth to ask Alex to marry him, but then he stopped. He couldn’t do it now, like this—he didn’t even have a ring. So, heart still pounding and a slight tinge of disappointment and quite a lot of impatience coursing through him, he snuggled closer to Alex and closed his eyes, vowing to concoct a more romantic, more elaborate proposal. 

II

The issue of _Le Monde_ Henry had taken from the hotel in Paris and kept on his nightstand for him to stare at moodily in Alex’s absence was now hanging on their bedroom wall, directly across from their bed. Alex had surprised Henry by having it framed for their first Christmas in the brownstone, and Henry had quite nearly sobbed with the thoughtfulness of it. Henry still stared at it daily, but now it filled him with electric jolts of happiness instead of the heart wrenching—and admittedly somewhat pathetic—longing it had incited before he and Alex had officially gotten together. 

Henry was staring at it now, alone in bed since Alex had class this morning, and that’s when the idea hit. Jolting upright, he scrambled for his phone on the bedside table and dialed Shaan. 

“You still have the contact information for that editor at _Le Monde_ , right?” Henry said in lieu of greeting when Shaan picked up. 

Shaan was clearly unbothered by the abrupt beginning of this conversation. “Yes, of course I do.” Shaan was acquainted with one of the senior editors of _Le Monde_ through some convoluted friend of a friend situation that Henry didn’t fully understand, but even if he hadn’t had this connection, Henry was certain that by nature of his status in the world, he’d have been able to get in touch with an employee somehow. 

“Can you send it to me?” 

“Should I even ask why?”

“Nope,” Henry said cheerfully. “Thanks, Shaan.”

Twenty minutes later, Henry was on the phone with Marie, who, as it turned out, was a hopeless romantic and was more than thrilled to be Henry’s accomplice. 

“Is it possible to recreate the front page of a specific issue, but swap out one story for text that I can send to you?”

“Yes, I don’t see why not,” Marie responded. “What is the date in question?”

Henry approached the framed newspaper on the wall, which was unnecessary, really, because he’d long ago memorized the date of the issue. “March 8, 2020.”

He heard the clacking of keys as Marie made notes or looked something up. “Wonderful,” Marie said. “Just email me what you’d like to replace one of the cover stories with, and I’ll get it mocked up for you.”

Henry sighed with relief. “Thank you, Marie,” he said sincerely. “I know this isn’t a normal or cost-effective request. I’ll pay whatever I need to for it to be done; I just want it to be perfect.” 

Marie chuckled. “I understand. And once it is ready, how shall I deliver it to you?”

This gave Henry pause. “You can’t send it here, because Alex might see it before I do. Could you send it to Shaan? I will be flying to England late next week for some family business, and I can get it from him then.” 

“Of course. We’ll be in touch.” 

*

Henry pulled the bespoke newspaper from his bag, where he’d carefully stored it before boarding the plane for his flight back to New York. Marie had come through in a big way, and, save one article, it was identical to the issue framed on their wall. 

**His Royal Highness Prince Henry of Whatever Asks Rather Large Question of First Son of Off-Brand England**

According to highly reliable sources, His Royal Highness, Prince Henry of Wales has finally done what gossip blogs, vaguely creepy fansites, and a rather disconcerting amount of fanfiction has been twittering about since the announcement of his relationship with Alexander Gabriel Claremont-Diaz, dashing First Son of the United States, and proposed marriage. “I love him endlessly,” Prince Henry said when interviewed about his motivation to pop the question. “All I want is to spend the rest of my life loving him and being loved by him. The idea of being able to refer to him as my husband is the most thrilling thing I can think of.” 

No word yet as to whether the First Son has accepted the proposal, but Prince Henry states that he feels confident that an official engagement announcement will be coming forthwith.

Henry smiled. It wasn’t his best writing sample, but then again, journalism wasn’t exactly his strong suit. His faux-article was honest and sweet and served its purpose, so he was more than pleased. He’d decided against using one of their official courtship photos to accompany the article, instead choosing a candid June had taken of the two of them the first time she visited them in New York. In the photo, he and Alex were sitting on the sofa, Alex snuggled up so close to Henry that he was practically on his lap. Henry’s face was angled down, his lips at Alex’s ear, and a content, serene smile was stretched across Alex’s face. The truth of the matter was that Henry didn’t actually remember what he’d said in that moment, but he did remember that after capturing the sweet moment for posterity, June had told them off for being entirely too mushy and lovesick in her presence. 

Once home, he placed the newspaper on the coffee table, and waited for Alex to find it. 

Over a week later, it remained untouched, and Alex had made no indication he’d even noticed it. It would be a lie to say that Henry wasn’t at least a little disappointed, but he supposed he could have timed it a little better. Alex was in the thick of finals, barely finding time to eat and sleep, much less examine old issues of newspapers in foreign languages that he didn’t speak. Somewhat defeated but still determined to mastermind the perfect proposal, Henry removed the newspaper from the table, tucked it away in his closet, and began formulating Plan C. 

III

Aside from trying to execute the perfect marriage proposal and his volunteer work with Pez’s charities, the vast majority of Henry’s time was spent writing what Alex had once referred to as an anthology of queer history. It was a labor of love, a work in progress that he had no real idea what he’d do with after he was finished, but that didn’t really bother him. Rather, he just reveled in the surges of creativity, in the way that he was finally able to put his passions on paper. Even if no eyes other than his and Alex’s ever saw the words he agonized over, he would be happy just knowing they existed. 

For his part, Alex was nearly as enthusiastic about Henry’s writing as Henry was. Despite his ridiculously demanding school schedule and commitments to his family and the Claremont administration, he insisted on reading every word Henry wrote as soon as Henry was ready to share it with him. So page by page, paragraph by paragraph, chapter by chapter, bits of Henry’s manuscript bounced from inbox to inbox, each digital page peppered with notes and comments from Alex to Henry and vice versa. 

They’d carried entire conversations over the comments and track changes. There were nights when they both sat in bed, laptops propped on knees, reading and reviewing the comments left by the other in various parts of the manuscript. Even as they chatted with one another in person, they were carrying on an entirely different conversation on the page. 

On one such evening, Henry had just finished putting the finishing touches on his latest chapter and was typing up a comment to Alex, asking his opinion on the flow of a particular section he’d written and rewritten what felt like a thousand times. He glanced over at Alex, who had just put his laptop away in favor of a textbook, a furrow between his brows as he concentrated on the material. Without thinking, Henry reached over and smoothed a thumb over the crease in Alex’s forehead before kissing the spot gently. 

“What?” Alex said, eyes flicking up from the book. 

“You were frowning,” Henry said simply.

Alex’s lips quirked up into a smile, and he pressed a soft kiss to Henry’s mouth, one hand cupping Henry’s cheek for just a moment before his attention returned to his textbook. 

Henry refocused on the comment he was typing, suddenly remembering how Ronan Farrow had proposed within a draft of _Catch and Kill_. A smile spreading across his face, and the comment suddenly took a very dramatic shift in tone and content. He wrote and rewrote several times until eventually his hands stilled on the keyboard as he read it over and over again. A subtle glance at Alex proved that he was still deeply engrossed in his schoolwork and had no inkling whatsoever that Henry had just typed a marriage proposal into his manuscript. 

Henry pulled up his email account and found the email chain with Alex that they’d been sharing drafts back and forth on. He hit reply, typed a short message into the body of the email, and then went to attach the manuscript. 

That’s when he hesitated. True as the words he’d written were, this didn’t really feel like _his_ proposal. Though he knew nobody could claim rights to or ownership of a particular method of proposing marriage, it felt a little cheap and impersonal to blatantly copy somebody else’s rather unique idea, so he cut the text from the manuscript, tucking it away in a separate document to be dealt with—or quite likely just ignored—later. 

IV

Henry shifted in his chair for at least the fourth time in the last ninety seconds or so, prompting Alex to tear his attention away from the pairs freeskate he was watching and turn to Henry. “Everything okay?”

“Hmm? What? Oh, yes,” Henry responded, the very definition of eloquence. 

Alex raised a questioning eyebrow that indicated he didn’t quite believe him but didn’t say anything else, instead resting one hand on Henry’s thigh and squeezing gently as he turned back to watch the pair from the Czech Republic that had proven to be a very unexpected dark horse in the competition. 

Henry couldn’t help but smile thinking about how different this Olympic experience with Alex was from their first one. Instead of asking Shaan to send Alex away in his fog of grief and anger and pain, here he was sitting next to Alex, fingers now tangled together on Henry’s leg, a ring in Henry’s jacket pocket as they watched athletes glide smoothly across the ice. 

“Dita looks a lot more confident than she did in the short program,” Alex murmured, almost to himself. 

“Oh does she?” Henry asked teasingly. “Didn’t know you were such a figure skating aficionado.” 

Alex blushed slightly. “Ah, but I contain multitudes, Henry,” he said.

“That you do, darling.” Henry kissed Alex on the cheek and scooted slightly closer to him. 

Alex grinned a little sheepishly. “Plus I’m just a sucker for the underdog, you know?”

“I know.” 

Henry knew a lot of things about Alex. He knew about the annoying way he chewed on pens and drummed his fingers on the table when he was deep in thought and the way his body migrated toward Henry’s on the rare nights they didn’t fall asleep tangled up in each other and the way he loved fiercely and unapologetically. He knew how Alex was more sensitive about his parents’ divorce than he usually let on, that he felt entirely too guilty about June changing her career plans to be close to Alex, and that he had the most giving heart of anybody Henry had ever met. 

Every time he learned something new about Alex—just this morning Alex had told Henry a story he’d never heard before about the time he was eight and had prepared and delivered a ten minute long presentation about why Alex should be allowed to get a dog—he fell a little more in love with him. Most days, Henry found himself consumed with wanting to know Alex more, to uncover his insecurities and secret joys so that he could file them away to be kept safe alongside the other things he knew about Alex. 

Henry shifted once more, reaching into his pocket and fingering the ring that was hidden there. The literature student in him loved the arc of him proposing at the Olympics, closing a loop that had been opened during their rocky first meeting at Rio all those years ago. It felt like redemption to propose here—like the universe was giving him a second chance to treat Alex the way he’d really wanted to that first time but hadn’t felt able to due to grief and pain and depression. 

He closed his fingers around the ring, but didn’t pull it out of his pocket. In theory, he truly loved the idea of proposing in the same place where they’d first met. They weren’t literally in Rio, of course, but it was the same event, which felt more important than the precise geographic location. But in actual practice, he wasn’t so sure. They were surrounded by people. True, they were in a cordoned off VIP section that separated them from other spectators and gave their respective security teams more control over their safety, but they were still in a large, crowded arena, Alex’s Secret Service agents and Henry’s PPOs hovering nearby as always. 

When Henry had first thought to propose in bed, it was the intimacy and privacy of it that appealed to him. So much of both of their lives—as a couple and as individuals—had taken place in the public eye, and he didn’t want that for this moment. They hadn’t been able to control the announcement of their relationship, so he certainly wanted to control the news of their engagement. And the risk of somebody noticing him proposing and taking a photo that would end up on gossip websites within minutes was just too high. Even more than that, he didn’t want to share this moment with anybody other than Alex, and he didn’t want to share _Alex_ with anybody else at the exact moment they got engaged.

So he pulled his hand out of his pocket, the ring staying put. 

For now. 

V

Henry didn’t know why it had taken him so long to come up with the idea of proposing via email, especially after all the time he’d spent considering other text-based proposal methods. They’d fallen in love via email, after all. More accurately, Henry was pretty sure that Alex had fallen in love with him through the transcontinental emails they spent months sending each other, seeing as Henry had already loved Alex for such a long time before their correspondence even began. 

For days Henry wrote draft after draft of the email that would change his life forever, frustrated by the way the words on the screen were never able to accurately reflect the depth of his love for Alex. He tried incorporating some of what he’d written in _Le Monde_ and in the comments of his manuscript, but nothing felt _exactly right_ , and after four failed attempts, the pressure for this to be _exactly right_ was ramping higher and higher. 

In between his furious attempts to string together the right combination of words, he combed through page after page after page of historical correspondence to find a quote that was _exactly right_. During the early days of their relationships, finding the perfect quote to accompany his emails had felt so much easier, because at the time, he hadn’t known that forever was an option, and the stakes didn’t feel quite as high. 

But forever was an option. An option he chose very enthusiastically and was attempting to lock down by way of this proposal. He wanted forever, and he knew Alex did too. But how did one find the correct words and the correct quote to communicate that? Henry spoke several languages rather well—with Alex’s help, his Spanish was even coming right along—yet he simply couldn’t find the words in any of those languages that did his feelings for Alex any justice. 

So he wrote and rewrote and cut entire paragraphs and inserted snippets of correspondence from people long dead only to delete them again, forming and shaping this most important email until the words clicked into place and the tone felt correct and the emotion shone through. In the end, he couldn’t narrow his historical postscripts down to just one, so he included his four favorites, hoping that the combination of those love letters would buoy his own love letter the way he wanted them to. 

On a quiet Friday afternoon, nearly a week after he’d begun drafting the email, Henry deemed it complete. He’d read the words a near infinite amount of times, but he couldn’t resist scrolling to the end and rereading the final paragraphs: 

I think about those early days when you were half a world apart from me, and I missed you with such ferocity that I felt incapacitated by the enormity of it all. You were the only thing on my mind from the moment I awoke to the time I finally fell asleep, and all I wanted was to be near you and touch every inch of your skin and hold you in my arms and forget about everything that was conspiring against us. I wanted you to be mine, Alex—I wanted you to be mine forever, even though I could scarcely allow myself to hope that it was possible. I still want you to be mine forever, and I want the world to know it and recognize it and stop trying to ignore the ways that our love transcends all the traditions and history and expectations they’ve tried to foist upon us. It is bigger, stronger than every outside force that tells us that our love doesn’t matter or that society isn’t ready to accept us for who we are. As corny as it may sound, I believe in the power of the love we share to change the lives of friends and strangers alike, just as it has completely, irrevocably, and incandescently changed mine. 

So, darling, will you be mine forever? Will you marry me? 

All my love,  
H

_Henry James to Henrick Anderson—1902_

Think only of my love and that I am yours always and ever.

_Patti Smith to Robert Mapplethorpe—1989_

You drew me from the darkest period of my young life, sharing with me the sacred mystery of what it is to be an artist. I learned to see through you and never compose a line or draw a curve that does not come from the knowledge I derived in our precious time together. Your work, coming from a fluid source, can be traced to the naked song of your youth….

The other afternoon, when you fell asleep on my shoulder, I drifted off, too. But before I did, it occurred to me looking around at all of your things and your work and going through years of work in my mind, that of all your work, you are still your most beautiful. The most beautiful work of all.

_Ernest Hemingway to Marlene Dietrich—1951_

I can't say how every time I ever put my arms around you, I felt that I was home

_Leo Tolstoy to Valeria Arsenev—1856_

I already love in you your beauty, but I am only beginning to love in you that which is eternal and ever precious—your heart, your soul. Beauty one could get to know and fall in love with in one hour and cease to love it as speedily; but the soul one must learn to know. Believe me, nothing on earth is given without labour, even love, the most beautiful and natural of feelings. But the more difficult the labour and hardship, the higher the reward.

The words felt right, Henry decided, his cursor hovering over the SEND button. They were right, and they said what he wanted to say, but he couldn’t quite bring himself to send the email off to Alex. He had no way of knowing when Alex would see the email. What if he opened it on the sly during a boring bit of class and wasn’t able to give it a proper read? What if this turned into _Le Monde_ Part II, and he _never_ read it. Logically, Henry knew this was terribly unlikely, as Alex was checked his email near compulsively, but the worry was there nonetheless. 

And did Henry really want Alex to experience the proposal alone? The likelihood of Alex seeing the email—therefore being proposed to—when Henry wasn’t with him was very high. Could Henry really risk missing the way Alex’s face would (hopefully) light up? Was he willing to give up the opportunity to pull Alex into his arms immediately after Alex (hopefully) said yes and shower him with kisses and whisper sweet nothings into his ear that Alex would pretend to hate but that Henry knew would warm Alex to his very soul? 

In the end, Henry decided that it was more important to him that he fully share the proposal experience with Alex than it was to have the perfect sequence of words, so the email remained a draft. 

+I

Henry and Alex were lying in bed together, facing each other on their sides, bodies pressed close as they enjoyed a quiet moment of being entirely wrapped up in loving each other. Alex reached out a hand, softly caressing Henry’s cheek, and Henry grasped Alex’s wrist, his thumb making soft circles on the tender skin. 

Neither of them had said a word in several long moments, and they were both happy in the realization that the silence stretching between them felt comfortable and familiar rather than awkward or uncomfortable. 

Despite the relaxed state they found themselves in, Alex’s heart was pounding, and before he knew it, he was breaking the silence. “Henry?”

“Yes, love?” 

“Baby, I don’t think I can wait any longer for you to get your act together, and I just want to be yours forever, and I want you to be my husband. Will you marry me? Please?”

A smile split Henry’s face, and he tugged Alex closer so he could kiss him deeply. “Yes, Alex. Yes, of course I’ll marry you.” 

Alex’s beaming smile matched Henry’s as he pressed his mouth to Henry’s over and over again, pulling away only briefly to grab the ring he’d stashed in the drawer of his bedside table and sliding it onto Henry’s finger before promptly going back to devouring Henry’s lips. Their hands were everywhere, the skin that had previously belonged to their respective boyfriends now belonged to a fiance, and it therefore needed a thorough re-examination. 

After several long, blissful moments, Henry pulled back suddenly. “Wait, what do you mean you couldn’t wait any longer for me to get my act together?” 

“You’re not nearly as subtle as you think, Henry. Honestly, I don’t know how you managed to hide the fact that you’re gay from the general public for as long as you did.” 

Henry spluttered a little but thankfully did nothing to disentangle himself from Alex. “What? What do you … you knew?”

Alex rolled his eyes good naturedly. “Of course I knew, H. You’ve been acting all secretive and furtive for months now, and I’m a pretty smart guy and put two and two together.” He kissed Henry softly. “Plus you left your email drafts open that time last week that I borrowed your laptop because I couldn’t find my charger.”

Henry blushed a little. “Did you—did you read the whole thing?”

Alex looked a little sheepish. “Yes. Sorry. It was … beautiful, Henry. Perfect. It made me love you even more, and I didn’t think that was actually possible.” He paused nervously. “Are you mad?”

Henry cradled Alex’s face in his hands and pressed a sweet kiss to his lips. “No, love, I’m not mad. I’m just sorry that I took so long that you beat me to it. I just—I wanted it to be perfect, and I kept coming up with ideas and halfway-executing them and then worrying that it wasn’t a grand enough gesture or whatever.”

“I never cared how it happened,” Alex said softly. “I just want to marry you.” 

Henry flushed, pleased and in love. “Me too. That’s the only thing that matters to me.” 

“Plus, you know we are going to have basically no creative control over the wedding, so I kind of like that we got engaged like this … quiet and cozy and just you and me.” 

“Yeah,” Henry said, all fond and tender. “This feels right. This feels exactly right.” He rested his forehead against Alex’s.

“Henry?”

“Yeah?” 

“Could you—do you think you could still send the email? So I can have it?” Alex sounded almost shy as he asked. 

Henry smiled fondly and kissed Alex’s forehead. “Yeah, sweetheart, I can send it. I also have a personalized issue of _Le Monde_ if you want that. And a ring!” He couldn’t believe he’d forgotten about the ring and lurched away from Alex so that he could retrieve it. 

“Hey!” Alex whined, feeling jostled and rather disappointed to find himself suddenly alone in bed. “Wait, why didn’t you give me the issue of _Le Monde_?”

“I did. Or rather I tried to. I left it out for you to find for a week, and when it became clear that you probably weren’t going to notice it, I gave up. You were in the thick of finals, and the timing just wasn’t right.” 

“Oh. I’m so sorry. I should have—I should pay more attention.” Alex bit his lip, looking absolutely gutted that he hadn’t noticed Henry’s gesture. 

“Don’t be, love. It doesn’t matter how it happened, remember?” Henry rooted through the closet until he found the jacket he’d been wearing at the Olympics and grabbed the ring from its pocket. He quickly returned to bed, kneeling over Alex, who had pulled himself up to sit with his back against the headboard. He gently picked up Alex’s hand, kissing the palm and then the ring finger before sliding the ring onto it. “Alexander Gabriel Claremont-Diaz, will you marry me?” 

“Pretty sure you’re supposed to ask _before_ putting the ring on, but yes, I will marry you.” Alex smiled devilishly like the little troll he was and pulled his fiance down into his lap for a deep, searching kiss.


End file.
